I think "traditional music" has become more and more important to him, he's trying to keep the "heritage of Americana" alive. Just check as an example the wonderful "Spooked" album by Marley's Ghost, which he produced 2006. The credit given by the band goes like this:
"Very special thanks to our skipper Van Dyke Parks, who, with humour and insight, guided us on a marvelous adventure to explore uncharted musical places"
and Ed Littlefield puts it in verse:
"Our prodigious producer Van Dyke
Told Dan, Jon, Ed and Mike
'More Chi-chi for you!'
And the parts grew and grew
Into amazing recordings we like

Now a band at hard work must be fed
Or they tire and grow weak in the head
With Van dyke in the kitchen
To create meals mas bitchin'
Is a most elegant way to break bread"

another example for unearthing old stuff is his interpretation of "Greenland Whale Fisheries" on Hal Willner's "Rogue's Gallery" project (2006).

Great post, dogear! I recall VDP in a TV documentary (in which Randy Newman also figures), wearing a cook's skirt (is that the expression) and making some sort of African soup or something... and I must check out that Willner project. VDP did a great job on a Willner LP from 1985 or so, with songs by Kurt Weill, notably the Johnny Jonson Medley, with singer Kathy Dalton. If I remember correctly, he also was present on the Willner project with Walt Disney music.
(...and I bought a Peter Case 12" once, 'Small Town Spree', because VDP arranged the strings on it).
Great musician, great person.

I'm surprised at all the interest.  I never would have none that this board existed were it not for a Google alert that my name appeared in a blog.

We're nerds.  As for which university ... how about MIU, in Fairfield, Iowa? Seems appropriate!

Actually, it's called MUM now, Maharishi Institute of Management. I looked it up awhile ago, it's a very interesting school. The food in the dining halls is all vegetarian/organic, and students are required to go to some sort of exercise class every day.

*has nightmare: MUM, out of its own principle, selling all of Steven's tapes to the highest bidder, an anonymouse Japanese businessman, who locks them away again ASAP*

It's a good record and like all vinyl boots fairly rare.

The original BFD releases maybe... But the AIP re-issues can't be that rare... I still fairly often see Pebbles LPs in record shops...

I have a BFD. It took me several years to find it in the early ninties, of course that was pre internet.

Same here. Time to unearth it after moving house and give it a spin.

I really like VDP. I think I am one of the few that hates Song Cycle. I mean don't get me wrong, I love Jump, Toyko Rose, Clang of the Yankee Reaper, the stuff he did with Indra from Bird & The Bee (I think it is FANTASTIC!!) and Black Sheep from the Walk Hard movie. Just can't get into Song Cycle though for some reason.

Hiya Surfergirl7 -

I am not that surprised. After 'Song Cycle', VDP worked in more traditional song structures. Perhaps that is what you mean to express. SC is more 'experimental', more echo-y; it's definitely one of a kind and unrepeatable.

I love his work. I thought Joanna Newsom's Ys sounded like it could just as well have been a VDP album with her lyrics--she clearly loves him. And his arrangements are always amazing. An Invitation is fantastic. It's a shame he doesn't have any money behind him to do his own work on a larger scale or more often.

Nice call, tks. I was so fortunate to see him twice live in concert: one time in 1996, with a large string orchestra behind him (around 20 people, I think, including a big harp); and the second time with a string quartet. Needless to say both events were magical and magisterial. The man's also a wonderful raconteur, he comes over as a slightly eccentrical, wonderfully educated professor in literature, politics, history and music.

Here's my take on that last post, and our aural judgment. I believe that the more effort made to make anything sound of its time, the more likely it will sound dated. Extremes tend to be based on fashion trends. So slick synths that were new and modern, (fake) snare drums with reverb forever, swirling psychedelic sound effects, overly flanged guitars, saturated electric guitar tones with whammy bar tricks, these are all things that came up, got big and got old. But a piano is a piano. The recording techniques do change and so there are (relatively) subtle changes, but for the most part, it's just a piano. I think when you play it straight, you're less likely to become embarrassingly dated.

Makes eminent sense, Luther.
It eases my mind too. See: I hate, I detest all house/rave/techno music, esp. the 'boombox' stuff that emerges from cars. It's largely based on gimmicks (and cheap but dangerous street drugs). So, perhaps in ten years time it will be seen as hopelessly outdated.
Imagine: in 2018, going to bed fairly early, and drug-free, without too much noise, will be ultra-hip!
I'll have a cool beer to that.

Perhaps we can discuss VDP's work a bit here too?

I am a huge, huge fan of his own 'solo' work. From 'Song Cycle' right through 'Moonlighting', it's fantastic. I am not really qualified to write reviews of each album, because I would run out of superlatives rather quickly. Let me only say that, when hearing 'Song Cycle' via headphones when I was 16 (in 1975, that is), I nearly asphyxiated, so breathless was I about the sheer inventiveness, the audacity, the arrangements and Lenny Waronker's production work. 'Discover America': ditto. Entirely different album, entirely same values. VDP was and is an enigma.

Out now is Inara George's CD 'An Invitation' (she's Lowell's daughter, by the way, and a friend of the Parks family). VDP did the arrangements, and going by the reviews, it's beautiful intimate chamber pop. Can't wait to hear it.
VDP also contributed to the new Clare And The Reasons album. Want to hear that too.
And I dearly like the soundtrack for the movie 'Popeye', another gem; Harry Nilsson and VDP are responsible for that one too.

I won't give away everything... there's a lot to enjoy at www.vandykeparks.com, a wonderful site approved by VDP, and run by German Jan Janssen.
Have fun!

The production on TLOS is AMAZING. Easily the best in BW's solo canon. Nothing is (pre)dated or trendy about the production.
Just clean and crisp like Sunflower or Friends. No bad '80s drum reverb or vocals swimming in chorus effects (also '80s).
Congrats. Even the tack piano on Been Way Too Long is real as is the Fender Rhodes at the start of Oxygen. I dig that they used all organic instruments on this one and not (overtly obvious) simulations.

 Listening to the vinyl on great headphones is a fantastic experience.
-bk

Slightly OT, but: what intrigues me so much is that, where I thought in 1988 that the first solo effort sounded AMAZING in all respects, I find it now very dated. Makes you wonder: how is our aural perception organized? And why can my quality judgment 'meander' in such a way? It it all so subjective and time-bound? A piano track  from 1988, when well recorded, should sound the same when recorded now.
But in 1988 I felt: wow, what a modern wall of sound. One for the ages. Now I feel: that is soooo '80s...
A bit like hippie clothing: hip at the time, bell bottoms and orange-brown tee shirts, beads, patchouli... only to discover that it was stinking ugly only a decade later and you'd not want to be seen in it for the life of you...

What's the lesson here? Avoid fashion? At any rate: at this moment in time, the original 'Friends' sounds so much finer to me that 'Brian Wilson 1988'. So I am very, very happy with the reports so far.

It is! You got me there. I knew the guy in the song is called Sean Flynn, but I wouldn't have guessed that the song bears the name as its title.
At any rate, wonderful stuff. As is: Straight To Hell. 'It Ain't Coca-Cola... It's Rice'.

Thanks for quoting etc. Makes me really hungry to seek a bit further.

  ...I will certainly investigate into that second B.A.D. album! I never knew what you write about it here... could become a totally unknown minor classic for me then.

At the time some parties were cynical about Joe (real name: Mellors), being a diplomat's son, lacking real integrity therefore. Now, if ever one singer through his art expressed honesty, it's Strummer. He carried some real, to me not traceable, pain in his voice (perhaps a very strict upbringing, devoid of emotion and with mental abuse? Could very well be, in those circles).
What's that song called again, from Combat Rock, about Errol Flynn's song, a war reporter? I hear Joseph singing in my head right now... 'You Know He Heard The Drums Of War..../When The Past Was A Closing Door...'. Great stuff.

Simonon re-appeared for the first time on, hold your breath, Bob Dylan's 'Down In The Groove' (1988). Don't really know how large his contribution is. And then, as you rightfully indicate, he came back with his own band, Havana 3 A.M., but I never heard anything by them. TBH: I never investigated things by the other ex-members. Strummer was my man, so to speak.

(I hope this is on-topic enough, but hey, the Bri, Bruce and Curt are singing background on one track!) -

Brian's not on the Dave Edmunds track. Another BB myth.

Thanks. But I could just swear that it is Brian who sings: 'My Woodie's Outside'... who's that then?

But 'Remember The Zoo' does exist! I happen to have it on the Albanian 'King Zog Rules' label... catalogue number # ST-2581.

Track listing:

(A Capella Intro sans Words)/The Joys Of Love/A Weekend Alone/In The Country Side/Carefree Days/Brian's Folly (instrumental)/My Desiree ----- Glimpses/The Shining Sun/Bad Habit/Reaching Home Again/Sequoia (instrumental)/Darling Don't Go

A nice effort. Not unlike 'Pet Sounds', really.

I would really, really appreciate it if Steven would be willing to be honoured with a writer's thread of his own, like the other ones. His insights are very worthwhile and informative.

To Jokker and Kookadams -

I stand (partly) corrected! You guys raised a few great points. 'Love You' is, in all its raw honesty and silliness, purely in the punk spirit. It fails totally. I mean: it fails totally when it comes to pretending. Where you can make a good case for punk protesting against all posing, and rightfully so, there are the naked Beach Boys of the mid-70s. And to put the Boys in a league with James Taylor, the Eagles, Styx, Saga etc. etc. would be the error of a musical lifetime.

Also: yes, the band rented instruments for playing in their home garage, against Dad's will. And furthermore, they never succumbed to Murry's wishes by turning into the Sunrays, with a lot of, um, sshhyncopating, in other words: boring old-timey jazzy pop.

*thinks of writing a good book: 'Heroes & Villains: How The Beach Boys Invented Punk'*

Nice long call Lance -

thanks for chiming in. For the most part you are right here. The Clash never sold out, that is sure. And they cared much more about music than about the doll... um, pound. Sad that Topper got addicted to heroïn eventually. He did a marvelous, now hard to find 12" called 'Drummer Man', and he had the drum talent of many a jazzman from the '50s.
Perhaps I was too harsh on 'Combat Rock'. Could be because I find 'Red Angel Dragnet' and suchlike pure filler. But there are ace songs on it too: 'Rock The Casbah' (a secret favourite within the GOP, I hear) and 'Ghetto Defendent', and of course 'Straight To Hell'.

FYI: Joe did a stunning soundtrack album, up there with Ry Cooder's best, for an Alex Cox movie: 'Walker'. It came and went largely unnoticed, I don't even know if it ever made it onto CD. I am lucky to have it on pristine vinyl still. Seek it out if you can, it is totally worth it. One Zander Schloss (from the 'Circle Jerks', if memory serves) does a lot of gorgeous string work there.

(edited) I just did a bit of searching. 'Walker' (OST) is available WITH bonus tracks on CD for around $ 7 new on Ebay. This is beer money for a wonderful soundtrack - only: don't expect Clash-style music. Expect beautiful, atmospheric, romantic instrumental music (3 vocal cuts in 18) that evokes Nicaragua.

Forget the Sex Pistols. Forget the Heartbreakers. Forget the NY Dolls. Here's...

THE CLASH!

OK now that I have this off of my chest, a few home truths:

...the Clash were great. No doubt. However, they only made 1 (one) punk album, and that is their début, same-titled. You should have it on vinyl, in its US configuration (sometimes more is, um, more). And that silly song about condoms is thankfully absent. Oh yes, you could complete their punk years with the original 10" vinyl thingie 'Black Market Clash'.  Also brilliant. I have it.
The Clash were also very naïve. They oozed some kind of gullible revolutionarism, like all resistance fighters would be automatically ethically good people. Which is not true.

Their second LP proper, 'Hang 'em High'...um, no, make that 'Give 'em Enough Rope', is a quite lame attempt at a pop/metal album, with Sandy Pearlman at the helm. It has its moments (notably 'Safe European Home'), but it also has songs about shooting pigeons and getting fined for that, based on true events. The sleeve, by the way, is awful.

Then came 'London Calling'. Rightly applauded. But wrongly labeled as 'punkrock'. It's simply pubrock, and there's a lot to enjoy: rockabilly, ska, reggae, Spectorian grandeur, simple lightweight pop, the lot. The sleeve, by the way, is great.

Then came their pièce de resistance: 'Sandinista'. Nick Kent dismissed it at the time in the NME, describing it as silly, overblown, and sounding wafer-thin. But then: Nick Kent = fool. He did not see the grand vision.
Originally the Clash had tried to talk Columbia into releasing one single per month for a couple of years, if memory serves. Columbia refused. Then the group thought: well, if we can get away with 2 LPs for the price of one (which was London Calling), then we can get away with 3 LPs for the price of one and a half. Which they did. They hired engineer Bill Price and made 'Sandinista'. Quite a dazzling affair, vast in its scope, and always daring to fall flat on its face. I give you: 'Lose This Skin', a dazzling folkrock stomper by friend Tymon Dogg. Or: 'The Equalizer', probably the first and only reggae song with a violin as the lead instrument, and in which the dub version actually preceded the song proper. Or: 'Career Opportunities', originally their signature tune about being on the dole, now sung as a children's ditty by... children. Or: 'Shepherd's Delight', a super-lazy country-dub version of Lee Perry's and Junior Murvin's 'Police And Thieves'. Or: 'If Music Could Talk', a reggae tune with lots of dub effects, to which Joe Strummer does some marvelous dreamy Sprechgesang, freely associating about Yamaha motors, Errol Flynn, the lot.
Really: this triple set is often dismissed. Too often. It is one of the very few really adventurous risky artefacts from the post-punk era.

After that, their steam ran out. 'Combat Rock' was, surprisingly, a single LP for the price of a, you guess it, single LP. It has its moments, but it also has some real duds.

End of story.

I want to get drunk!

Now c'mon dear Aegir, isn't that overreacting? Just read my instructive comment just above, old boy.

It's just a matter of making sure that you start writing after the very last [/quote] sign, that's all. Or alternatively, to make sure you scroll completely down at the right side before starting your comment. Things can't go wrong then.

I think The Fading Rock Group Revival was just Bruce's joke nickname for Reverberation, which had Cottonfields, Break Away, and Celebrate the News, combined with a few tracks from Landlocked and Sunflower.

OK tks!

I adore the photograph. One of the best ever IMHO.

Is now a good time to bring up the working title: The Fading Rock Group Revival?

I recall reading this one long ago in some magazine, don't know which any more. Might have been thought up by Jack Rieley. In the days when perhaps for the first time 'eco-awareness' became an issue. Somehow, IMHO, 'Landlocked', 'Don't Go Near The Water', 'A Day In The Life Of A Tree' all have a certain downishness about them, and 'Til I Die' and maybe also 'Surf's Up' fit into the pattern. As does 'The Fading Rock Group Revival'.
Also, Rieley made that concept LP together with Machiel Botman, 'Western Justice', about global environmental and food problems (hey, were they really that visionary? After all, 'Western Justice' got released in, I think, 1973 or thereabouts.

Makes sense. I have revised my original opinion (guesswork) and now think it might be mr. G. with a mathematical certainty of 74.56 % (although around 87.12% of all statistics are made up on the spot).

Are you sure of that figure? I could swear it was higher.

Now, yeah, some scientists claim that it's actually 102.27%.

If I may (temporarily) interrupt a most interesting discussion -

thanks guys! This is more than I'd hoped would be posted... and be sure that this is one of the few threads that I will print out.

Now go on!

(I hope this is on-topic enough, but hey, the Bri, Bruce and Curt are singing background on one track!) -

I bought this gem of an LP in 1980 or therebouts. Superb surf compilation, with Dave Edmunds, and a lot of genuine surf troupes, AND Jan and Dean doing a Coca-Cola commercial.

Now: a couple of years ago I saw a CD titled 'Pebbles Vol. IV', but it had a different sleeve, and seemingly a truncated track listing. I can very well imagine that the original had things on it that were beyond legality (said commercial, for instance).

Is it worthwhile to go hunting for that CD? And, um, is my LP collectible?